Prof. Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, announced the names of the teams that qualified for the final stage of the Cairo International Rally for Homemade Electric Cars 2020, which is held under the patronage of the Prime Minister, and they are the engineering faculties teams from the following universities and institutes: Ain Shams University The Higher Technological Institute of the Tenth of Ramadan, the Russian University in Egypt, Kafr El Sheikh University, Nile University, Mansoura University, Helwan University, Suez Canal University, Zewail City of Science and Technology, Menoufia University, South Valley University, Zagazig University, the British University in Egypt. 6 new teams were selected to participate in the competition this year, and they are universities: Benha, German in Cairo, Assiut, Tanta, CUC, and Al-Azhar University. The number of teams qualified to this year’s final 19 teams, and they received the material support provided by the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology.

The minister called on the heads of the universities of the winning teams to provide all support to students and to overcome difficulties, as these young people represent hope for Egypt to enter the electric car industry, explaining that Egypt is eligible to join the electric car revolution With its young engineers and technicians who are graduates of Egyptian universities and technical institutes and technological colleges, the incentives provided by the state, and the size of the Egyptian, Arab and African market.

For his part, Prof. Dr. Mahmoud Sakr, President of the Academy of Scientific Research, congratulated the winners from different Egyptian universities who qualified to participate in the final of the third rally, which is expected to be held next December, indicating that the Academy’s executive plan in the fiscal year 2020/2021 paid great attention to the technological and industrial alliances With the aim of transferring and indigenizing technology, deepening local industrialization, and gathering scattered national capabilities at home and abroad.

Sakr explained that the Cairo Rally of locally manufactured cars is one of the huge project programs adopted by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research through the Academy, which it launched in 2017 in the field of the automotive industry, and also includes the formation of a national alliance for the local manufacturing of the feeding industries in the auto industry. With the aim of increasing the percentage of the local component.

The 19 qualified teams were selected by a committee of industrialists in the Egyptian market, with their expertise in the fields of the local auto industry and engineering industries.

For his part, Prof. Dr. Mahmoud El-Metini, President of Ain Shams University, stated that this rally is the result of fruitful cooperation between the Academy and Ain Shams University, where the iHub Center for Innovation and the Faculty of Engineering at Ain Shams University undertakes technical and organizational supervision.

It is worth noting that 24 teams from 24 Egyptian universities underwent the technical training phase, workshops, the design phase and technical reviews for the new season of the 2020 electric car rally, which were all converted to digital content following the preventive measures for the emerging corona virus, and then 20 teams submitted the final designs for electric cars to participate In the race, all technical designs and presentations submitted by all teams were reviewed by a group of judges representing the auto industry in Egypt under the supervision of the competition management team; To select the best teams to participate in the final stage by the organizing committee to provide manufacturing opportunities for the most efficient teams, then the best 19 teams were selected from the 20 to qualify after the decision of the jury that placed the arrangement for the level of the 19 teams to qualify for the final.

For his part, Dr. Majed Ghanima, professor of Ain Shams engineering and the principal researcher of the project, stated that this is the third season of the rally, as it was held last year in November 2019 in the Administrative Capital with special preparations, including building roads and tracks for the race, spaces and stands for spectators and spaces for media coverage, with the participation of 15 Egyptian teams and the presence of 2500 Spectators, and more than 50 members of the press provided full coverage of the event, and the winning teams received cash prizes of one million Egyptian pounds, and the events of the first season of the electric car rally competition were also held in the New Administrative Capital in October 2018 after a strong competition that included 9 Egyptian teams.

Dr. Amr Farouk, Assistant President of the Academy, added that the competition aims to create an encouraging environment for the electric car industry in Egypt, to prepare engineering cadres and to attract the best elements to enter this field and put Egypt on the international map to participate in international competitions through an institutional system supported by the state, which helps to increase confidence in international companies to invest in this field in Egypt and enter into partnerships, in addition to qualifying technical workers, engineers, researchers and designers in the fields of embedded software, mechanical parts, electrical driving systems, design and owning the components of this promising industry, as well as supporting and motivating students and innovators in an enjoyable and exciting atmosphere.